Animal cruelty convictions rise as RSPCA says it is struggling to cope.

A hamster was thrown against a wall and stamped on by a man in a revenge attack against his partner. This is just one of the sickening crimes that has been reported by the RSPCA which is being pushed to cope with all the animal abuse that is occuring.

It has been a tough year for the RSPCA and they admit that they are stuggling to cope with the amount of cases it takes on. They said that in 2012, the convictions increased by a third. The chairity also rescued around 131,000 pets from owners. Also the extremity of cases has shocked them.

The charity reported some horrific stories including to puppies that were buried alive in a shallow grave, a spring spaniel called Sid who was slashed more than 30 times and 30 rabbits and guinea pigs that were living on top of their dead companions.

In total there were more than 150,000 cases of suspectedcruelty. 4184 convictions and 86 people were sent to jail. The RSPCA is known only to go for a conviction as a last resort.

Dogs were unfortunately involved with most of the cases however there have been rises in horses, farm animals and also rabbits.

There is still on going debate into the RSPCA’s role into convictions. The charity has the role of both being a prosecuter and also a campaign group. This could arguably cause a conflictof interest. For example after going after fox hunting it lost a lot of supporters who partake in the sport.

The RSPCA however said that these two roles were independently run and that five pence in every pound dnotated were spent on prosecutions.

It prosecutes about 1% of all incidents it investigates and has a prosecution success rate of around 98%.